April 24, 1932

Bess’ Diary

April 24th, 1932
Sun. 45 Rain
H to WAA breakfast at 8. Daylight Savings time starts
at 2 a.m. today. Furnace fire after 2 days without, H
to supper with Prof. Bush to meet Stephen Vincent
Benet. Covered violets and azaleas



Comments: Helen was a junior at the University of Iowa at this time. She was a member of the Tri Delt sorority and many other groups. The WAA appears to have been the "Women's Athletic Association." Here is info from the UI Women's archives:

"The Women’s Athletic Association (WAA), an intramural organization with both an athletic and social focus, was organized in 1911 to “promote a spirit of fair play and sportsmanship among girls.” The WAA offered a variety of clubs, including Orchesis (dance), Seals (swimming), outing, hockey, canoeing, archery, badminton, tennis, basketball, and handicrafts. The group sponsored tournaments, play days, intramurals, sport club activities, classes in social dancing, and all-freshmen parties."

Helen was a member of the rifle team, Bess often mentions Helen practicing shooting.

Daylight Saving Time started nationally during WWI but was suspended in 1919. Apparently Iowa must have gone back to it sometime after that, and before it was nationally adopted in 1966.

Earlier in the week Bess' diary mentions she had bought an additional half ton of coal. The furnace fires would have been fueled with that.

Prof. Bush was French professor Stephen Bush. Helen was a French major, and had made her first trip to France, with Professor Bush, in the summer of 1929. She returned to France in 1931, also with Prof. Bush. He remained her mentor and I have read letters well into the 1950's where Bess updates Helen on Prof. Bush's health. I have also found a 1902 book citation that thanks Prof. Bush for his help in translating a work, his career at UI certainly seemed to have spanned half a century.

Stephen Vincent Benet (pictured above) was an American Poet best known for John Brown's Body , which won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1929. Another well known work is the short story The Devil and Daniel Webster . Benet undoubtedly was speaking on the UI campus. This appearance would have pre-dated the formal establishment of the now internationally renowned UI Writer's Workshop, which continues to attract well know poets and authors to Iowa City.

With a high of 45 that day, it was likely below freezing that night. Covering the violets and azaleas would be to protect them from a killing frost. In last 40 years Iowa City has a 50% chance of frost on or After April 15th.

Happy 100th Helen!

Today, March 20, 2011, would have been Helen's 100th birthday. She was 17 when her mother built Foxcroft in 1928, and she started as a freshman at the University of Iowa. Here they are in 1929:



To celebrate we invited Ann, Helen's cousin, over for dinner. It had been far too long since she had been here, she didn't come at Thanksgiving because due to my Dad being hospitalized we didn't have a celebration. At Christmas time Ann was not feeling well so she wasn't here for that get together either.

We had our "Irish" dinner of corned beef and cabbage. After eating the girls excused themselves and Lisa, Ann and I visited for quite a while.



Ann said it still felt like home here at Foxcroft, and it should, considering that not only had she visited here her entire life, but had lived her for two and half years as Helen's caretaker before her passing in December of 2004. Ann had many reminisces about Helen and Bess.

We made a special cake for tonight, from one of Helen's cookbooks: Walnut cake with caramel icing.



The walnuts we used were from the black walnut tree in the backyard. Here is a picture of Helen posing with the tree in 1932, above the recipe:

Goodbye Princess Pink...

...Hello Hootenanny!



Younger daughter has been begging for two years to re-paint her bedroom. Her most persistent line of reasoning is that she chose her room color when she was 4, and that now she has reached the ripe old age of 9 a change is in order.

We relented and decided that spring break was a good time to do this, so we started clearing her room out Friday night and on Saturday I set to work. "Hootenanny" is the color of green she chose. She painted the smiley face herself.



Here we are conferring after finishing the test wall and starting to turn the corner. Since the original paint was relatively new I merely cleaned the walls and re-coated rather than clean, prime then re-coat.



This photo gives a chance to show off her cast. Due to a buckle fracture in her left radius she gets to wear that for a month.


And here she is sleeping this morning with the cat standing guard.

Other major spring break projects to follow!

Washington's Birthday in the Atomic Age

February 22nd 1950-1954 at Foxcroft, from Bess' diary:

1950
Wed. 30
Walter gone 31 years today. Helen hemmed skirts and I crocheted on bedspread – basted hems in her cream tablecloth + cut her 9 napkins. Betty here in PM to bring coffee bread + Mrs. K brought cookies. “Winned” the canasta games by beating Helen – Walked to grocery store for carrots, oranges and (unreadable) 99¢


1951
Thur. 35
Made a cherry pie with whipped cream + hatchet crust top which took all a.m. Wrote cards to Blanche + John Dornnan. Dottie looked over so here 3 – 5:30 We had tea + pie – she took 2 pieces home – Bob dashed over to borrow some whiskey for an unexpected guest. Bed 6:30

1952
Fri 36
Baked cherry pie – Started to take a couple pieces to Rays when they drove in around 6 but Bob said “I’d rather eat them in your house.” So they did. Worked in basement again in a.m. got several seed orders into the flats - Telephone visit with Mrs. Whipple who called to see if I was OK. Slept a while mid afternoon Bed at 7

1953
Sun. 34
Cold wind – Watered plants – Put cherry pie together took 2 pieces to Dottie and 3 to Wilsons when I went down to dinner at noon. Saw lovely pictures of Rickey’s baby + (unreadable) Home at 1:30 – Wrote Jean - Blanche – Wil + Book of Month - grate fire - Grace phoned - Bed at 6.


1954
Mon. 50
Washed – Helen + Mickey hung up clothes Micky took teacher stuff to Bigelows. He + Helen dyed his army shirts. I finished the knit baby blankets (unreadable) at last. Went to council meeting in evening and found out about paving assessments. Same as Mr. Knowher had given me. Heard last half of Iowa 83 Ill. 65 or thereabouts a big upset. Mrs. Baxter gave me a ride home

Comments:

1950
Walter was Bess' husband, he died in Serbia in 1919 while still under his enlistment during WWI. He was a doctor and was sent to help deal with a typhus epidemic, he contracted pneumonia and died. He was 37 years old, Bess was 36 at the time. She never re-married.

1951 & 52
The pie with the hatchet crust must have been very similar to the one pictured, which I photographed from my copyright 1950 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook (first edition) I'm certain Bess got the idea from this cookbook. It remains one of my favorite cookbooks too. Bob and Dottie were dear neighbors who moved next door in 1950. As a young faculty member I'm guessing Bob needed to do a fair bit of last minute entertaining!

1953
Wilson's were other neighbors down the street. Blanche was Bess' sister who lived in northern California. Wil was former neighbor
Wilbur Schramm

1954
Bigelows were yet another neighor. They built their house behind Foxcroft's fishpond in 1949. The old couple were still living there when we moved in, summer of 2005. As always Bess loved her sports, especially the Hawkeyes and Chicago Cubs.

Descent into the Maelstrom

Besides being the name of a short story in volume II of the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe that I read over vacation between Christmas and New Year's, Descent into the Maelstrom,
is an appropriate description of painting the basement stairway, which I also did between Christmas and New Year's. The number of "untouched" spaces at Foxcroft keeps dwindling, and this was a good one to get out of the way.

For all the time Bess took in planning so much of Foxcroft before it was built, I cannot for the life of me understand why she did not have an entrance from outdoors straight into the basement. Cellar doors or anything would have been crucial in my mind, but apparently not in her's. So any time you had to go from outdoors to the basement you had to go through the kitchen. Lots of very dirty hands went down the stairway over the years, lots! To make matters worse, I'm pretty sure that the stairway was wearing its original 1928 paint until this project.

Here is the way down. I removed the door before starting (Stuccohouse will be so happy to see I did that)


And here is the other side. I took off the light switch covers and taped over the light switches to prevent paint splatters. I also removed the hand railings, which had been added at some later time, as the original handrails don't start until descending below the plaster:


As you can see from this pic and the two above, I primed the corners with a brush before rolling the rest:


We had a lot of "Hubbard Squash" left over from the living room, so that is what I used:


The light switch plate was pretty grungy, Here it is before clean up:


And after boiling in water and baking soda plus some 0000 steel wool:


And here it is back on the wall:


Don't ask about the second switch, it is a long story...

On Heating Oil and Gov't. Checks

After posting Bess' diary entry for Monday Jan. 31. 1951 I did a little looking around. Currently the national average price for home heating oil in $3.478 per gallon. That is roughly an increase of 25 times Bess' 1951 price of 13.8 cents per gallon. Her 310 gallons today would have cost $1078.18 plus 6% sales tax of $64.69, for a total of $1142.87. The cost difference between 1951 and 2011 would be $1099.24.

An interesting aside is that I have no idea what she would have stored the heating oil in, or where in the basement a tank would have been located. The original heating source for the 1928 boiler would have been coal. The coal room is marked on the blueprints as being located in the basement at the driveway turnaround on the northwest wall. This was likely so that a truck could back in and unload through the coal door. That coal door has been replaced by a small basement window. The coal room is currently my workshop which means I store paint and tools in there. I'm guessing that is where the tank would have been?

The boiler was originally supposed to be in the middle of the basement, so that it was near the coal room. But was instead built near the chimney on the southeast wall toward the front of the house. This put it on the opposite wall from the coal room. When we moved in, the house had a 1979 boiler that ran on natural gas. So that is at least two different boilers with three different fuels to power them. We replaced the boiler with a geothermal system in 2005. Because of that, the only things running on natural gas are our oven, the clothes dryer, and the fireplace. Our monthly gas charge is always $16, which must be the minimum. The geothermal runs on electricity.

The 1979 boiler is still sitting in our basement. My brother, Tom, said it is my duty to hold onto it for him, as someday the 1905 boiler in his house will fail completely. He likes the idea of having a backup readily at hand.

A final thought: If I used the same multiplier effect from above for the price of oil, Bess' still mysterious $75.00 gov't. check would be worth $1875.00 today. That would be a very nice chunk of change!

60 Years ago Today at Foxcroft

January 31, 1951

Wed. -5

Nuts – baked bread – cards to Judy Smith and musical chats. Dottie here for tea sent her home with bowl of spaghetti + 3 pieces cake. Wrote check for 310 gal oil @ .138 = 43.63. Gov’t check for 75.00 came –

Comments:

"-5" Would have been the high temperature that day. Bess recorded the high each day. The day before (1-30-51) was -17, the day after (2-1-51) was -20. It was certainly a cold week. Below zero temps are forecast again for us on Thursday, but usually the high makes it upwards from there!

“Nuts” probably meant she cracked nuts. Despite the black walnut trees not being listed in her 1956 yard map cracking nuts was a regular winter pastime. Bess had three other entries earlier this week that tell of cracking nuts. (I spent nearly 2 hours cracking black walnuts myself yesterday.)

“Judy Smith and musical chats” I have no idea what this means. I haven’t seen this person’s name mentioned before.

“Dottie” was the next door neighbor, who is a regular reader of this blog. In several other entries during this time period Bess mentions being alone all day, so these visits certainly meant a great deal to her.

“310 gal oil” This would be a reference to heating oil to run the furnace. The price must have been 13.8 cents per gallon. Multiplying that price times the amount comes to $42.78. The additional 85 cents must have been sales tax? Bess’ Jan. 31, 1950 entry says “Fuel oil smell in house as tank overflowed.” Given the cold temps it must have been a comfort to have the tank filled.

“Gov’t check” I’m not sure what this would have been. Bess was a WWI widow, but I don’t think this would have been a pension. I know that in the mid 1920’s the yearly support check for Helen as the minor child of a WWI soldier who died in active duty was $27.00 annually and that Bess had to send a detailed report to the Veteran’s Administration detailing how she spent the whole thing!

Marion's Prairie Prayers

My first post of 2011 is only tangentially related to Foxcroft but it is related. I've actually referred to Marion before, specifically here:

Heirloom peas



Aunt Marion was my father's aunt. She was my grandmother's closest sister, three years her junior. We always saw Marion and her husband, Bill when visiting at grandma's in the summer. They would come and play 6 handed pinochle with my grandparents and parents. Marion's home in Marcus, Iowa had a very large garden. Aunt Marion had a loom in her basement and wove rag rugs. After Bill died Marion always came to Thanksgiving at our house with Grandma and Grandpa. Marion was a favorite of mine.

Apparently Marion was a lot like both Bess and Helen, in even more ways than I have already related. (gardening, handwork). Marion and Helen were contemporaries, Helen was born in 1911, Marion in 1912. Both married later in life and apparently both were dedicated diarists. I had no idea Marion kept a journal. The article listed below is written by one of my dad's first cousins, whom I've never met.

Marion's Prairie Prayers

Considerably less educated than Helen, Marion, like my grandmother, was sent to live as a "cook girl" with a farm family at age 14 after the completion of 8th grade. Marion's journal seems to be far more insightful than anything I've read in either Helen's or Bess' journals. Of course I need to remember that I still have over 1,000 letters yet to read as well as what is at the UI main library from Bess and Helen.

As my brother commented to me "Wow...so interesting to get a glimpse of the backstory I'd always wondered about..."

I'd love to get a transcript of Marion's writings and line them up with Bess and Helen's.

Bess' Diary Dec. 8th 1941

40 Mon. Windy Washed Heard Pres Roosevelt message to Congress. War declared on Japan. Took car over town for boxes + a little shopping. Ordered 80 Christmas cards from Mr. Kent.

Gretchen here for tea. Made 125(? can't tell what the word is)cookies - Fran phoned about seeing University play this week.

Guttersnipe*

*noun
a child of the slums who spends most of his or her time in the streets: contemptuous term applied to anyone regarded as having the manners, morals, etc. of the gutter

Origin: orig. (Brit dial.), the common snipe, which picks food out of gutters

Yes in the five years we have been at Foxcroft I have been a guttersnipe about our front gutter. Since the first winter I have known that there was a problem with the gutter in that it leaked over the front porch steps and created a gigantic ice hazard that made it nearly impossible to use the front door.

I'd had several people offer advice on what to do, but got nowhere. Finally I mentioned it last summer to Tim, a fellow member of Friends of Historic Preservation, who is a highly regarded handyman. He came over this fall and said, no problem, if I got him some copper to patch with, (our gutters are made of copper and are original to the house) he'd drop the gutter at the end where the downspout was (Which over time had become the HIGH spot) and patch in the bracket. Well he came and discovered that unlike most gutter systems this one has a continuous flap that must run a foot under the entire roof. There was no way to do what he had originally planned. I asked what our options were, he said really the only thing that could be done is to move the downspout to the low spot on the gutter which is over the steps. Tim came last weekend and we did just that.

First I carefully removed the downspout and set it aside:



Then we sweated out the downspout from its place on the North end of the house.


Then we cut a patch for the hole and cleaned it:


And hammered it to make sure it would lay flat:


Then after fluxing everything it was soldered into place:


Then we cut a hole at the low spot just north of the porch steps post:


And soldered the downspout into the new location:


At this point Tim was ready to call it an afternoon. I set the downspout back in and realized I would need some elbows to push the bottom of the downspout back out so it would clear the post steps pillar. I went to the hardware store Monday during my lunch hour and then set that all up. As I drove back to work it started to rain. When I came home Monday night I got out the ladder and went up to look, and there was nearly no water left in the gutter. I am hoping for a much safer winter!

I really don't like the way the gutter looks, having lost the symmetry, but in this case safety is much more important.

Slowly winding down

Just like the days getting shorter, my time working on the south side continues to diminish. With school starting I have slowed to nearly a stop, but I'm not yet ready to admit defeat and put the scaffolding away yet.

Most recently I painted the new screens from Adams Architectural and hung them on the kitchen windows:



These are the "little" windows above the sink and are quite a bit smaller than the dining room windows or even the second floor bedroom windows:



The other piece I'm still working on is to repair the rot at the end of the barge board toward the front of the house. When I removed the aluminum that had been tacked over the barge board I found that quite a bit of the original board had rotted away. At some point a big chunk was chiseled out and a piece of replacement wood had been added. Of course just covering that with siding gave a great place for moisture to gather. I chipped away at the worst rot and hit everything with wood hardener. I then have been slowly building up the voids with bondo. I'm pretty close to having it all filled in.



With any luck (and no Iowa home football this weekend) I may get the rest of the barge board sanded and ready to paint.

Rope a Dope

I continue to plug away at painting this summer, even if I haven't said anything about it. I'm working on the Southeast side of the house. This is the side that shows the most damage from weather. It is also where the triple dining room window is. Here is the window in the midst of being heat gunned/scraped:


The far left side hadn't been done yet


Here is one of the center sections


After heat gunning the paint off the boards in the center sections were in bad shape. I knew I'd need to sand down to bright wood in order to get any new paint to stick. Since they were so loose anyway I decided to take them off, which of course exposed the window sash weights and cords.


It was then that I realized how much easier it would be to replace the old sash cord FROM THE OUTSIDE. I wouldn't have to knock open the channel pocket and reach in and up or spend nearly as much time threading the cord through the pulley. I went and bought new cord, since I was nearly out and I found a thicker cord than I'd ever seen before. It was so thick I could barely get it through the holes in the weights. but it sits very nicely in the pulleys.


So the center window is completely re-roped and the two outside windows have their inside ropes replaced. In other words of the 12 ropes in the window section 8 have been replaced. I'll do the outer ropes on the outer windows when I'm ready to reglaze those windows in the future.

After getting the outside boards clean I put them back into place. I used bondo to fill in the cracks in the board to get a smooth surface again, and sealed them up at all the edges. I did the same to the chimney window next to the fireplace. Here is that one ready for priming.


So how does it all look now? Here are the dining room windows completely painted and with my new screens from
Adams Architectural in place. (Storms will go up this winter)


Here is the chimney window.


I have been back up working in the eaves and repairing the lookouts that hold the barge board in place. I'll post on that next.

(Way) Better Than Nothing Post

I have photos of housing scraping and painting and stories in my head, but just haven't gotten them down yet.

In the meantime, last week Sunday was the University Heights Garden Club tour, and we were one of the stops. The University of Iowa's student paper, The Daily Iowan, sent photographers. Here is one of their shots:



David Scrivner/The Daily Iowan
Guests view the backyard of Mike and Lisa Haverkamp’s home during the 2010 Garden Tour hosted by the University Heights Garden Club on Sunday. Around 150 people toured the nine locations in University Heights.

Photo can be found here, scroll to the very bottom:

Today's Photos, June 28, 2010


Here is the full story. The slideshow has lots of photos of our yard. (Photos 1, 3, 6, 9, 11 & 12) The other photos are all from the two other gardens on our street. The video clip also has me babbling about Foxcroft, while wearing my goofy Mountie hat:

Back to the garden in University Heights

We had a great time hosting the tour. Then last Wednesday everyone whose garden's were on the tour walked and had our own tour. That was was even better.

Happy 99th Birthday, Pergola

I finished painting the pergola last week. The final part was painting the cement columns, which I did in "Lambswool" the same color as our window trim and back porch columns. Here is a column taped off at the capital:


And taped off at the base:


So now that it's all complete here is a view from the south:


A view from the east:


A view from the north:


And a view from the west:


So if we put this in last summer and just finished painting it now why celebrate its 99th birthday? Because I found a forgotten piece last week, that I had stashed away in my carpenter's box when we were salvaging the columns from their original location. You may remember that the columns were originally here:


I wrote about it here:
Going Vertical

When we were knocking apart the cement blocks on the porch I found this inside one of them:



In case you can't read it:

Built by
Bart Easlon
June 14, 1911
For Mr. M Wolbe

So I can say "Happy 99th Birthday, Pergola!"

The 5 W's at Foxcroft

For the last several weeks I've been dealing with the 5 W's at Foxcroft they are:

1. WORK
Of course this is the first "W" it's all we know around here. I stained the boards in the pergola. I'm using the same old lumpy stain (Oxford Brown) that I've been putting on the house. I've also now painted the capitals above the columns in the same color as the bargeboards and rafter tails. Next will be painting the columns "Lambswool" same as the house window trim.


2. WISTERIA
For Mother's Day we bought Lisa two wisteria plants. 17 years ago we planted Hardy Chinese Wisteria at our previous house, but right when it got big enough to bloom, it became shaded by the corkscrew willow that we also planted. We put our "Kentucky Blue Wisteria" along the back two columns of the pergola. I hope it grows quickly.


3. WHIMSEY
We had a planting on the driveway blow down in big winds. As I started to cut it up I got thinking about using the branches to make a trellis along the back corner around the fish pool. First I did the part on the west side of the pool. I told Lisa what I was making was "whimsey."


Then I started on the south side. The neighbors behind us had a huge limb blow down out of a maple tree, so I sawed parts off it and used them too. Then I trimmed a little from our lilacs. Pretty soon I was going down into the ravine and getting scrub from down there:


Since this is a trellis we have fall clematis on it that we planted a year ago. I've also planted some fancy morning glories, and am training up the weed morning glories too. We also have some wild grape started on it as well.

When in the ravine I found some really nice virginia creeper. I cut a piece to wrap around and make a window:


This all lead to the next "W":

4. WEIRDNESS
I was confronted by another neighbor (not one who's property is adjacent to the trellis) that said I was building a fence in violation of the City's fence ordinance. And to top it off, what I was building was ugly and a fire hazard. I was quite taken aback by this but said I'd check with the owner next door and look at the fence ordinance. The house next door is currently for sale and has been empty now for over a year. The owners said they had no problem with what I was doing, and the city building inspector visited and said what I had was a trellis and not subject to the fence ordinance. The icing on the cake came several days ago when the leader of the City Garden Club visited to see if we'd be on their tour. She loved the trellis and said the current issue of "Horticulture" magazine had one just like it.

5. WILD TURKEY
Not the drinking kind, the actual large bird type. I saw what I thought were bags of garbage on the railroad tracks when going over the Melrose Bridge on my bike. When I went back to look I realized they were turkeys. There were two male toms in full display with about 6 hens feeding along the tracks. My guess is that they are getting all the spilled corn that falls off the railroad cars. Here is a pic I took of them.


Then Sunday I was walking my mower down the driveway to mow the bottom of the front yard. I saw something move in the hostas between our house and yet another neighbor's yard. (we share boundaries with 5 houses) When I looked back I realized it was a turkey that must have been sleeping/roosting under the hostas. It ambled back into Matt's yard for a snack under his bird feeder. I went and got a picture of this one too: